Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Pragmatism
Truth happens to an idea — and pragmatism is the philosophical method of evaluating beliefs by their practical consequences
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Pragmatism (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Pragmatism
Real temporal verification process — truth-claims unfold and are tested across time. Future-open in the practical sense.
Space
Pragmatism
Standard scientific background.
Matter
Pragmatism
Real and engaged through inquiry. Standard scientific realism.
Observer
Pragmatism
The Jamesian observer is the embodied inquirer in a community of inquirers. Active in verification, plural at the social level. The metaphysical agency is personal in the pragmatic-religious sense (Pragmatism Lecture VIII).
Energy
Pragmatism
Standard scientific framework.
Information
Pragmatism
Real beliefs lead to real practical consequences. James retained a sympathetic engagement with religious immortality.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Russell's and Moore's attacks on James's theory of truth as "voluntarist" — that we can believe whatever works for us — have shaped the analytic perception of pragmatism ever since. Modern Jamesian scholarship (Putnam, Misak) defends James against the caricatures while acknowledging that his popularising rhetoric sometimes invited them.